Please join me in welcoming René Pluis to the Cisco Energy Blog. René is a member of my global energy team and has vast experience of Cisco architectures and technologies and how they can be applied to our customer’s business and technical challenges to create positive business outcomes.

Rene Pluis

René has been working in the industrial network domain for several years now. His focus has been on enabling business imperatives through the deployment of communication networks, connectivity and collaboration.

His main focus is the Oil & Gas Industry, both onshore as well as offshore. Deployment of wireless technologies to connect sensors (IoT – Internet of Things) and enabling mobile wireless clients (track & trace) in hazardous areas and pipeline operations are just two of his focus areas in this industrial network domain. He is also very familiar with other areas of the energy industry such as utilities and energy management.

He combines both a technology and a business view on the solutions at hand. He has spoken at several events and conferences and is considered a consultative subject matter expert by many industry and customer groups:

I have great pleasure in introducing you to the new Cisco Energy Industry Blog.

Did you know that the Energy Industry is one of Cisco’s fastest growing sectors served with huge opportunities for Cisco partners and customers? You probably know that Cisco has historically served the Enterprise IT and Network buying centers of most energy companies around the globe, but did you know that Cisco has a growing presence in the Operational Technologies areas of these companies solving real business, technical and process challenges? Yes, the Internet of Everything is here!

Nico Smit Welcomes you to the new Energy Blog and the re-invigorated YouTube and Facebook social media for Cisco Energy

That’s because over the past decade we’ve pushed the relevance of Cisco well beyond the concerns of the networking engineer and are now leading the dialogue, solutions and innovations for energy firms’ lines of business—crossing the entire value chain and ecosystems that compose an energy enterprise organization. With a complement of collaboration,virtualization and video service architectures that we provide over the network, Cisco has proven to be a trusted partner for a variety of firms in the energy sector, transforming their businesses and creating long-term competitive advantage through new models for customer growth, product and business innovation, agility and operational excellence.

Future opportunity for Oil and Gas. What’s your view?

So what can you expect from this blog? Who are the people contributing, and what are their backgrounds? What are Cisco’s views and opinions about the Energy Industry? Why would you be interested?

We want you to be part of the dialogue. Cisco has gained increased influence with energy companies not only in terms of technical guidance, but also in terms of business advice and thought leadership. The goal of this blog is to share and broaden that perspective. Read the blogs, watch the videos and give us your comments and opinions. We welcome your viewpoint and constructive feedback. Check out our other social media platforms: Cisco Energy YouTube Channel, Cisco Manufacturing and Energy Facebook, and the Cisco Energy Twitter feed. Read More »

We often think of technology in terms of flashy gadgets and slick new applications. But the technology with the biggest impact is often more prosaic. It’s about using straightforward tools to solve basic problems that make people’s lives better.

One of the best examples I’ve seen of this recently is NextDrop, out of Hubli in the state of Karnataka, India. NextDrop is attacking a problem that affects millions of people in India and in much of the developing world: unpredictable and unreliable water supply.

With the east coast reeling from the effects of hurricane Sandy, utilities are doing their best to restore power to millions who are still without power and other services. Cisco’s NERV truck has been deployed to help utilities and other emergency responders re-establish communications for incident management and service restoration.

The basic concept of an electrical power grid has matured from the early stand-alone distribution systems that serviced a limited geographic area to a more expansive and far-reaching regional network that incorporates multiple areas. In practice, the uninterrupted access to sources of electric power became a key ingredient of the economic development advances that were made possible during the Industrial Age.

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